Merely a Madness
by JohnGreenGirl
Summary: Three years after the Harmons meet their tragic end in the L.A. Murder House, the Richards family moves in. Callie's father has always had a soft spot for the supernatural, but she never dreamed that this would lead her down a treacherous, horrific road to a paranormal romance with the House's most notorious guest, Tate Langdon.
1. Prologue

**A/N: ****Hello, everyone! This is to let you know that the lovely **_ifshepromisedyouheaven_** is beta reading this for me! I hope y'all like it and I would love it if you guys would review to let me know what you think and if you would also check out **_ifshepromisedyouheaven's_ **work also!**

* * *

**Prologue**

"Tate's got a quick hand," I sing along with Foster the People's _Pumped Up Kicks_. Tate died the year I was born. He has no idea who Foster the People are. All he knows is that he's stuck in this house and that I told him I had a surprise for him.

He smiles when I walk over to my bed, where he's lying, and straddle his stomach. He has no idea how well he fits this song.

"He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid," I take the cigarette from his lips and take a drag. I don't understand why he can smoke and eat and why I can feel just how solid his chest is under my hand. He doesn't have a heartbeat. That's the only difference between me and him.

Tate takes the cigarette from me and stumps it out in one of the candles by my bed. I'm about to tell him, _again_, to stop doing that when he rolls so that I'm lying beneath him. His hands slide under my shirt. They're ice cold like always and he smirks at the goose bumps that rise on my skin. I make a gun with my hand and put it to his head.

"The slight of my hand is now a quick pull trigger." He's kissing me almost before my sentence is over. The way Tate kisses is hard to describe. It's rough and it's hard and it always leaves me with bruised lips. I love it.

What I'm not prepared for is feeling cool metal against my head. At first I think he's kidding. Surely Tate wouldn't…

"Tate," is the last thing I ever say alive. My blood is suddenly everywhere.

"Bang," he says.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

* * *

When people think of Los Angeles, California, people think of accidently bumping into celebrities and mobs of paparazzi fighting for the perfect picture. They think of beaches, sunshine, and beautiful blondes. That's what normal people think of anyway.

I've never said my dad is normal, and I probably never will. He loves all things paranormal. Ghosts, demons, supernatural animals—if there is an urban legend out there, you can guarantee Dad's heard of it, studied it, and tried to the best of his efforts to track it down. While other kids were going to Disney Land for vacation, I was in New Jersey, hunting down the Jersey Devil. Or I was deep in the South, trying to catch a glimpse of Confederate soldiers marching like they didn't know they were dead.

My mom isn't as in to the paranormal. I'm pretty sure she just humors Dad on all of these adventures. For every trip we took to look into the other world, there was a trip that involved literature: museums, Laura Ingalls Wilder's house, and the biggest win for my mother so far, a very expensive trip to England to see William Shakespeare's house. I know she won that one by arguing about how I should see the life of the man who inspired my name, Callie. I thank God that Dad wouldn't let Mom name me Calpurnia like she had wanted to, after Caesar's wife in _The Tragedy of Julius Caesar_. Callie is a really nice compromise, I think.

I knew that Dad had been eyeing the L.A. Murder House for as long as he'd lived in California. I just never thought that England would be the leverage he needed to get Mom to agree that the house would be a 'good investment'.

"If we fix it up a bit, give it some retail value, we can earn back more than what we spent to go to Great Britain." What Dad was really saying was that he wanted to go there to investigate all the murders that happened there. Overnight stays early on in their marriage were all that Dad was allowed. Actually living in a supposedly haunted place would make his life's dream come true.

"You know what?" Mom said, kissing Dad's temple as she set his pancakes before him. Mom and Dad  
are the most affectionate couple I know.

"How about we buy the house just because I love you and I want you to be happy?" I resisted the urge to gag. I mean, I'm glad my mom and dad are happy or whatever, but they are so sappy sometimes. They always say I'll understand whenever I fall in love.

"What about what happened to the Harmons? Aren't the daughter and the baby still missing? What if they come back for the house? She'd be old enough by now." A few years ago, the Harmon family lived in the house. Vivienne, the mother, died having a baby in the house. The father, Ben, committed suicide soon after. Their daughter, Violet, took the baby and ran. Or so the story goes, anyway.

"We're gonna live in the Murder House?" my little brother, Rhett, asked. He got his name from Rhett Butler in _Absalom, Absalom!_. He's only eleven, but he loves all things supernatural, just like Dad. I like it, too, but I also like literature, like Mom does. Rhett thinks books are a punishment.

"Yes. You and I will go ghost hunting as soon as we get a good old fashioned library built for your mom and sister." Rhett's face lit up like it was Christmas. Ghost hunting is his absolute favorite thing in this world. He started asking Dad all sorts of questions about how they're going to do it and which of the famous dead they'll contact first. Mom winked at me over their heads. I know she's never really believed in ghosts.

That is how my family ended up moving into the L.A. Murder House, otherwise known as the house of my father's dreams. Boxes are all over the driveway, waiting to be taken into the house. The house itself is way prettier than I was expecting. Rhett isn't even helping move in. He's stuck on going to all the places where someone has died with Dad's EMF reader.

I'm trying to find the boxes that go up to my new room when I notice a boy standing in the yard. He's got curly blond hair and he's wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. His hands are stuffed deep down in his pockets.

"Hello!" I hear Dad yell behind me. He's waving to the boy, who smiles and starts to walk over. When he gets close enough, he offers Dad his hand.

"Hey, I'm Tate Langdon. I live next door with my mother and little brother, Michael. Mom said I should be neighborly and help you guys move in. I'm at your service." Tate turns his head at the last bit and smiles at me. He's cute. Really cute.

"Well, Tate, why don't you help my daughter here?" Dad nods over to me before lifting one of Rhett's boxes. I smile at Tate.

"I'm Callie, by the way. Just look for boxes with a 'C' on them and follow me up." Tate stacks them three high. I laugh, thinking he's trying to impress me.

"I know where to go. I used to live here a while back. You said upstairs, right? That's probably my old room." I pick up a box and have to half-jog to catch back up with him. He's a lot taller than I am. I barely reach his shoulder.

"You used to live here?" Rhett comes barreling down the stairs and almost knocks both of us over. He yells sorry, making a straight trail for the basement. I set my box down and fix Tate's, which are teetering.

"What was it like, living here?" Tate looks over his shoulder like someone called his name. When I look back, nobody is there. I don't even know what kind of look is on Tate's face. It's like a mix of hatred and annoyance, but there isn't anything there that I can see. I know it can't be about Rhett. Tate smiled when he ran by.

"Let's get these up to your room," he says, resettling the boxes in his arms and taking the stairs faster than before. Maybe the rumors about the house are true and Tate saw things he never wanted to see here. I know all too well what the paranormal can do to some people.

We had painted my room just a few days before moving in, so it still smells really strongly of paint. Tate walks around the room, looking at the paint job and the furniture. Maybe he's comparing it to the way the room looked when he lived there.

"Reminds me of apples," he says of the pale, almost icy green of the walls. It's my favorite color. It always has been, and like he said, it is inspired by the apples.

"What color did you have it?" He sticks his hands in his pockets, turning his head this way and that. The sunlight coming through the window hits his brown eyes in such a way that they look black. Completely black, so that I can't make out his pupils.

"It was blue. My mom painted it. I was a lot younger then. What did your brother have in his hand?"

"It's called an EMF reader. Electromagnetic fields is what it stands for. Dad's really into the paranormal. Supposedly a change in EMF signals a ghost." I rock back on my heels. I never really know how people are going to respond to that. I love my dad and I'm not ashamed of him in the least bit, but his hobby hasn't gotten me many friends.

"You definitely picked the right house, then. If your dad ever contacts a spirit named Beauregard, let me know. Do you have more boxes?" He's walking out of my room before he's even done talking. I have to jog a bit to catch up.

"Yeah, I do. If you don't mind me asking, who's Beauregard?" Tate easily picks up the last four boxes when we get to the driveway. Even though they're smaller than the others, I know they're heavier because they're full of books and movies. I try to take the top box from him and he twists away, smiling again.

"I got it," he says, blowing a few stray blond curls out of his eyes. I think he's ignoring my question until we get back up to my room.

"Beau was my older brother. He had some problems, and he died here a long time ago. It's part of the reason we moved next door. Mom couldn't stand to live here anymore but she didn't want to be too far from where it happened, either. I think she always believed he's still here."

Tate flicks the box cutter Dad left for me like it's a switchblade. He holds it almost like one, too, but when he cuts the first box open it's gentle as a kitten.

"I'm so sorry," I say, resting my hand on his arm. Even though his t-shirt is long sleeved, I can feel how cold his skin is underneath. I'm cold, too. The old house is drafty and freezing from being left still so long. Tate shrugs.

"It's okay. Like I said, it was a long time ago. Beau's favorite place was the attic. You might want to send Rhett up there to look later."

That night, I have a dream about the Harmon's daughter. Violet is standing in my room, and she's dripping wet like she's been dunked under water. When she reaches out to me, I can see all the scars on her forearm. She leans down close to me, almost like she's going to kiss me. Instead, she whispers in my ear.

"Whatever you do, don't trust Tate."


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Tate sits on the Richards' new couch, watching Callie as she cooks in the kitchen. Upstairs, he can hear the kid playing with Beau. He hasn't been up to see his brother in months now. Adelaide, his now dead sister, used to sneak in the house all the time to see Beau.

"I bet you watch her shower, too," Hayden says behind him. As always, she's got on more eyeliner than necessary. Tate thinks it makes her look like a raccoon. He turns around to glare at her.

"Shouldn't you be sucking off Dallas or throwing yourself pitifully at Ben?" Hayden rolls her shoulders back and inhales deeply. Even after three years, she isn't used to Tate and his mouth.

"Didn't that Southern mama of yours teach you to respect your elders?" In the kitchen, Callie picks up the plate of brownies she's baked just as Troy and Bryan reach for them. The redheaded twins never even try to hide their death blows like Tate and Hayden do. You can easily see where Thaddeus slit their throats, down to the bone almost. _At least_, Tate thinks, _they're smart enough not to show themselves often._

"I was born before you were, dumbass." Out of the corner of his eye, Tate sees Hayden flip her hair over her shoulder and place her hand on her hip. He already knows what she's going to say.

"Maybe she'll do a better job with your devil son, eh, Tate?" She smirks. Bitch always thinks she's clever, pulling out the Michael card. Tate rolls his eyes and sighs.

"Go away, Hayden." The charm works just like it always does. Since he doesn't have to listen to Hayden's annoying voice anymore, Tate goes back to his favorite activity as of late: Callie watching.

* * *

If ever my father had been more excited than this in his life, I wouldn't believe it. The sun has already gone down on one of the last days of summer. While Mom is in taking a bath and reading and I'm getting ready for bed, Dad and Rhett are setting up for a ghost hunt. I know I won't be getting much sleep tonight while they talk to the spirits and all that good stuff.

I finish braiding my hair and get into bed. Even though it's still August and we have the heat running, the house is so cold. Dad says it's because of the ghosts. Mom says it's because the house is drafty. All I know is that even with the heaters on and two blankets on top of my comforter, it takes me a long time to get warm.

All day, Rhett asked the housekeeper, Moira, all about the people who've died here. Moira apparently comes with the house, like a package deal. She's old and sweet, and I think she might be blind in one eye. It's discolored like she has a cataract in that eye. Mom was more than happy to hire her. Once school starts again, she'll be teaching English at my school and lecturing night classes a few times a week at one of the community colleges. With Dad working late most nights at the little hole-in-the-wall café he co-owns with his brother, Rhett and I would have been left to fend for ourselves if it weren't for Moira.

I've never understood why ghost hunts are always done at night. Wouldn't the ghosts still be there in the light? It's not like they're vampires and will burn. Supposedly, they even show up in photos. I've seen some pretty convincing ghost photos, but I've never seen one that is like, 'Yup, that is definitely a ghost!'.

I fall asleep before I even hear my father tell Rhett to go 'lights out', a term he's picked up from watching way too much Ghost Hunters.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Violet Harmon crosses her arms across her chest. Every ounce of her being seems committed to showing Tate just how annoyed she is.

"I thought you weren't ever going to speak to me again," he says, knocking on the wall. Rhett is in the next room, asking the spirits to reply to his answers with either one knock for yes and two knocks for no. Tate has been following Rhett and his father for hours, performing little tasks for them to help prove the existence of the paranormal.

"You shouldn't screw with them like this." Rhett asks if the spirit he's talking to is nice. Tate smirks and replies with a single knock. Violet reaches out and adds another.

"Very mature, Violet. If you really cared what happened to this family, you and the others would play Superman again and scare them out instead of pulling tricks from Miss Barbecue and making Callie sleep walk so you can talk to her."

In the next room over, Rhett thanks the spirit for its cooperation and excuses himself. Tate was having fun until Violet ruined it. Violet always ruins his fun. When Tate turns to face Violet, she's got the deepest frown he's ever seen on her face.

"Do us all a favor and don't add anyone else to this house. It's already too crowded." Violet turns the corner and disappears. She may be gone, but Tate knows she can still hear him.

"You chose death! Don't you dare put that on me!" he yells after her.

* * *

"And then, when we were down in the basement, we could hear the footsteps of someone walking back and forth!" Rhett is super excited at breakfast the next morning. Mom is nodding along to his stories while she makes French toast, but I know she doesn't believe them. The old house settling, a raccoon, the wind moving through trees; these are the things my mother thinks of when something goes bump in the night.

"That's great, love," she says, kissing first Rhett's cheek and then mine. She's dressed in what I call her 'professor uniform': a blazer and pencil skirt, hose and heels. She's finishing up some summer lectures at one of the local community colleges. I like it better whenever the school year starts and she's all about whimsical, almost bohemian looks while she teaches at my high school, Eastern Heights High School.

"Beth, you wouldn't believe how much evidence we'd have gotten if we recorded it." Dad doesn't believe in recording his sessions, aside from EVPs—electric voice phenomenon. He thinks that if you have cameras running, it makes the ghosts shy. Technology free sessions, he says are more personal and less intrusive. If you ask me, sulking around in the dark and poking into the un-deads' un-lives is pretty intrusive.

"I always believe in you, Shane," Mom says, smoothly sidestepping the paranormal as she always does. After she leaves for work and I help Dad clean the kitchen, I grab a blanket and a book and head outside. It's one of the last days of summer, my best friend Lacey isn't back from her summer in Florida with her dad, and I can't think of a better way to spend the day than outside in the gazebo in the backyard.

The new house is far from the beach, which makes me sad. At our old house, I could see the water and smell it on the nearly ever-present soft breeze. I love the backyard here, though. There are trees and flowers everywhere. They may be a little wild and overgrown from not being taken care of for years, but I like them this way.

I'm halfway through Poe's _Masque of the Red Death_ when I hear the high pitched laughter of a little kid. You know the kind that you hear on playgrounds and that just makes you happy for no reason. That's when Tate and a little boy that looks a lot like him come crashing through the bushes that separate our yard from the Langdon's.

"I got you!" Tate yells, victorious, and rolls so that the boy who I take to be Michael can stand up. Michael stands, laughing, and pulls on Tate's sleeve, telling him to get up and do it again. The little boy is blond like Tate is, but his eyes are a bright blue that I can see even across the yard.

Tate waves to me from where he lays on the ground. Michael has gone from pulling his sleeve to bouncing on his stomach. I smile and wave back to them as Tate stands and throws Michael over his shoulder.

"You're gonna get it, little man!" I'm still looking at where they once stood when I hear Rhett calling for me.

"Callie! Come up here, quick!" I rush back into the house to see what Rhett is so excited about. I find him in my room, where he's got part of my floor taken apart. I'm about to yell at him when I see that Rhett isn't the one who's cut up the floorboards. It's actually a secret compartment, set between my floor and the ceiling of the room below.

"Look at all this stuff in here!" I pull out a picture that looks like it's from the 1920's. There's a young woman in it, and she's cradling a baby. There's paint samples and fabric swatches, a pair of cat eye glasses that look like they're from the sixties, and a gun. I smack Rhett's hand when he reaches for it.

"Don't. It could be loaded, and knowing you, you'd shoot yourself in the foot with it." Rhett sticks his tongue out at me and takes the picture and glasses.

"I'll bet me and Dad could use these to find the ghosts."

I sincerely hope not. Dad's ghost hunting can be a fun thrill, but I've never wanted to actually see a ghost like he and Rhett do. I pray the spirits of the people who lost their lives here are peacefully at rest and didn't come back.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

* * *

"And this," I say as I conclude the tour of the house I'm giving Lacey, "is my room." I make a sweeping motion as I open the door, revealing my apple green walls, white ruffled curtains, flowered bedspread, and all of my furniture that my mother picked out when I was little and is inspired by the grandeur she read about in historical novels.

"I'm glad they finally let you paint your walls. I thought you'd never get rid of those dancing bears!" Lacey flops down on my bed. The 'dancing bears' she's talking about were painted on my wallpaper by my maternal grandmother whenever I was a baby. I myself had half expected Mom to carefully remove the paper and bring it to the new house. She did remove one, though. And frame it. It's hanging above my dresser. Lacey laughs uncontrollably when I point it out.

"I'll never be able to escape the bears. They'll probably be a feature in my wedding. Now get off your butt and help me find an outfit for tomorrow." We may be entering our junior year of high school, but we still take first day of school outfits very seriously.

Standing side by side with Lacey, you might think we could be sisters. We both have dark brown hair, only Lacey's is short and straight while mine is long and a little bit wavy. Both of us have upturned noses and oval faces, but where my eyes are hazel, Lacey's are this wonderfully dark green. I look more like my father and Lacey than I do my mother and Rhett, who are all strawberry blonde hair and gray-blue eyes. The only thing I share with Rhett is our ability to both tan pretty and freckle like we're Irish in the summer.

"I like this," Lacey says, holding out a green dress printed with tiny, silver birds. Lacey's never been one for subtly, so after she finishes the outfit for me with sandals and jewelry, she once again jumps on my bed and smiles up at me.

"I want to hear about the house. Have you seen anything scary yet? Ghosts and demons? Faces in your mirror, unexplained voices? What about your housekeeper? I'll bet she's seen some stuff." I roll my eyes at her, but I pull up the false bottom floorboard beside my bed and pull out the stash.

"Look at this. It's like a collection of pieces from people who've died here." I pull out the picture of the pretty young woman holding a baby.

"Her name was Nora Montgomery. She and her husband committed suicide here after their baby was kidnapped and dismembered."

* * *

"You're wrong! How could you say such awful things, you terrible little girl? My Thaddeus is fine! Just fine!" Nora Montgomery falls to the floor of Callie's bedroom, her jeweled gown and many necklaces tinkling and clanging as she goes. She feels an arm wrap around her shoulders and turns her head to see the blond haired boy she once saved from her son. She always was fond of him.

"Shh, Nora, it's okay. She doesn't know the truth. It's okay, it's just lies she's been told. She doesn't know better." Tate begins to smooth her hair down, being careful of the exit wound in the back of her head. He really doesn't understand why some of the other ghosts don't hide their death wounds. It's not like it's hard to pass for totally normal.

"Thaddeus is fine, isn't he?" Tate nods, but his eyes are on Callie. She's holding the gun, _his_ gun. The gun his mother used to kill his father and Moira. One of the guns he used in his library massacre. The one he pulled on the SWAT team and earned him seventeen bullets ripping through his chest.

"I don't know who this is from," she says, setting it on the bed. Her friend picks it up and turns it over in her hands. If Tate had a heartbeat, it'd be pounding, he's sure of it. He helps Nora to her feet, still trying to get her to stop crying.

"Let's go see Thaddeus."

* * *

When I come home from my first day of school, there's a woman with a blonde beehive sitting in our living room. On the floor, playing with a toy fire truck is Michael. Moira is bringing her a cup of tea, and sitting opposite from her is my father. I can tell from the way Moira is so stiff around her, that she doesn't like her.

"There's my Callie-bug! Come say hello to Constance Langdon, our neighbor. We met her son when we moved in, remember?" Constance stands and meets me halfway, hand extended. Hers is soft but papery. She's much older than I expected her to be.

"Hello, darlin', it's nice to meet you," she says and I'm surprised again. There's a Southern accent in her voice that wasn't in Tate's. I smile at her and tell her it's nice to meet her, too.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been by to see you sooner. I've just been so busy with this little devil of mine," Constance says, affectionately ruffling Michael's hair. Suddenly, something catches his eye. He stares toward the corner really intently for a second and then his face breaks into a huge smile and he waves.

"Callie, dear, how old are you?" I take a seat on the couch being careful to step over Michael and his toys. I'm not very sure what to make of Constance, but she obviously makes Moira uncomfortable. Moira probably worked for Constance when Tate was little. Maybe she was mean to her.

"I'm sixteen, ma'am," she nods, a smirk coming to her lips. She looks me up and down, like she's appraising me. I feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny. I put Michael's fire truck up on the coffee table and push it around for him just to have something to do. He laughs and stands, pushing it fast so that it flies of the end.

"Whoa!" he says.

"Ma'am. I like that. Not a lot of young folk have manners these days." She flutters her hand around to make her point. When she takes a sip of her tea, she makes a face.

"Moira," she calls, "could you bring me some sugar?" then she says in a lower tone to Dad and I, "She never did learn how I like my tea, and she worked for me for years when I lived here. Might want to keep that in mind."

I can see that Dad doesn't know what to do with this woman. I want to leave, but I know it would be rude to. I'm grateful when Michael hands me his fire truck to push around.

"Constance, where is your other boy? Shouldn't he be out of school by now?" Constance is dumping sugar into her tea. She swirls it daintily with her spoon and sets it down carefully on a coaster. She's a southern belle, alright.

"Tate's still at school. Track practice. He goes to Westfield. He spoke highly of y'all when he came home after helping y'all move." Constance reaches into her purse and pulls out a bundle wrapped in gold paper and tied with a curly ribbon.

"A house warming gift. It's sage, to cleanse this old house of its history." She says this with a tight smile. I can already tell that Dad isn't going to burn it, even though he takes it with a gracious nod. Dad and Constance keep chatting about myself, Rhett, Tate, Michael, and Mom while I play fire truck with Michael. Rhett and Mom are lucky he has soccer practice and they get to skip this.

* * *

Nobody but Michael knows it, but Tate is actually sitting beside Callie on the couch. They're playing the Invisible Game, where Michael has to pretend he isn't there because nobody else can see or hear him.

"No," Tate says, placing his hand over Michael's mouth when he tries to bite Callie's arm when she isn't looking. Michael closes his mouth without biting, and Tate is grateful. If he had bitten down, the others would have been able to see his blood and his mother would know something was up.

"Remember what I told you? We _like_ Callie. We're going to be nice to Callie. If you bite her, you're going to be in big trouble." Michael takes his fire truck and places it in Callie's lap.

"Vroom, vroom," she says when she pushes it along the coffee table. Michael takes it and shoots it across the wood so that it goes flying off the edge. He laughs, running after it. When he turns, he looks to his father and Callie and claps, waiting for their approval.

Side by side, Callie and Tate clap for Michael.


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

* * *

"I thought you said he's outside playing with his little brother a lot," Lacey says. She's sitting on my bed, looking out the window in the hopes of catching sight of Tate. It's become an obsession of hers since I mentioned him at school one day.

"I also told you his mom said he runs track at school. So he's probably at practice." Lacey groans and rolls over. Patience is not one of her virtues. She flips through her Seventeen magazine for a few minutes before popping up like a jack-in-the-box.

"I know! Let's _Google him._" I give her a look that is meant to say she is insane. That's so stalker-ish, using Google to look someone up. For some reason, my ear feels all tingly, like it does whenever somebody whispers into it. I start rubbing at it.

"No, Lacey, that's creepy." I pull my laptop off the bed before she can even try.

"You can't tell me you aren't curious," she teases, pulling at my hair.

"I never said I wasn't. I just think doing that is weird." I don't know what is up with my ear, but I wish it would quit.

"Callie, what if he turns out to be, like, an ax-murderer or something?" I roll my eyes at how dramatic she is.

"Yeah, because that's so likely."

* * *

"Do it. Google him," Violet is sitting on Callie's bed, whispering into her ear. She's trying to reach Callie on a subconscious level. Violet's done it before, while Callie's been sleeping. With her awake, though, it just seems to be bothering her. She keeps pawing at the ear she's whispering into.

"You sure are annoying," Tate says from where he's taken a seat at Callie's desk. Violet glares at him.

"Get over yourself. She'll run when she finds out the truth." Tate twists his ring around and around on his thumb. He can't decide if he likes that Violet is acknowledging him again or not.

"You didn't," he finally says. He looks right into her eyes when he speaks. It's been a long time since that's happened. Violet is just about to whisper to Callie again, but she does a double take at his words.

"You raped my mother." She doesn't say it in the angry way she used to. It's just a fact she's speaking. Tate's about to speak when Violet cuts him off.

"And just so you know, you aren't going to kill this girl." Violet is leaning down again whenever suddenly Tate is there, pulling her off the bed so that she has to face him.

"I didn't kill you. You killed yourself. I tried to _save _you." He's shaking her, hard. Violet stares at him with wide, round eyes. Tate closes his and grits his teeth, his fingers digging into Violet's arms.

"I used to love you so much, Violet. You didn't love me. You said you did, but it was a lie, I know it was." Blissfully unaware to what is going on just feet from them, Callie and Lacey slide off of Callie's high set bed and race down the stairs. Callie's mother has called them for dinner.

Violet pushes Tate away from her. She's stronger in death than she was in life, and pushing him off is easy. She stares at him, looks him right in the eye and says _it_ again. The words that had hurt him so bad so long ago.

"Go away, Tate."

* * *

The gazebo out back has easily become my favorite part of the house. Mom hung up fairy lights that gives me just enough light to read outside in it as the sun goes down. She's also filled it with pillows and given it a new coat of paint so that's its comfy-cozy for me.

I am out in the gazebo, reading Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ when Tate Langdon steps over the low bushes into our yard. He's wearing a flannel shirt, and it looks like his jeans have seen better days. His curly hair is slightly damp, like he's showered recently. When he gets closer to me, he smiles wide.

"Hey, you," he takes a seat beside me and thumps the hardback cover of my book. My heart starts to pound. I'm not used to him being so close.

"Horror again, I see." I can feel my face turning red in a blush, so I duck my head.

"Well, my dad _does_ spend his free time chasing down ghosts and whatnot." He chuckles, stretching his legs out in front of him. His Chuck Taylor's are coming untied.

"Do you believe in them?" he asks, fixing me with that dark brown gaze of his. There isn't anything challenging in the way he's looking at me, like I've encountered before. When people learn what my father does for fun, they're either hardcore skeptics who can't wait to tell me how stupid he is or overzealous believers who pounce on the opportunity to speak to him. Tate seems like neither, so I tell him the truth.

"Honestly? I don't know. What about you?" Tate shrugs. His head cants to one side, and he stares up at the fairy lights. The soft white glow illuminates his face and dots his night-dark eyes.

"I think anything's possible," he says, returning his eyes to mine. Suddenly his whole face lights up, like he's just learned some great news.

"Come with me, there's something I've been wanting to show you." He takes my book from my hands, laying it face down on a pillow beside me. Then he takes my hand, pulling me to my feet. It's icy cold.

"You're always cold," I comment, rubbing his hand between both of mine. I do it before thinking, and blush furiously when I realize what I'm doing. I drop it immediately. He smirks, and takes my hand again.

"It's a blessing and a curse," he says, squeezing my hand for emphasis. He leads me through the overgrown flowers to the back door.

"Are your parents home?" He opens the door before waiting for a reply, and smiles and waves at Moira, who's washing dishes in the kitchen.

"No, they're both at work. Just me, Rhett and Moira." I can't read the expression on Moira's face. Maybe her dislike for Constance has bled over onto all members of the Langdon family.

Tate traverses the house like he spent his whole life in it rather than just a few years. He leads me up the stairs, to the opening to the attic in the hallway. Pulling the sting down to release the stair, he makes a sweeping gesture with his arm to let me know I should go first. This is the first time I've been in the attic, though I've been meaning to come up.

It's so dusty up there that I burst into a sneezing fit while Tate is climbing up. He waits it out, telling me bless  
you repeatedly until they finally stop. Then, he takes my hand again. He holds it so that our palms are cupped together, but after a moment he changes his mind and fits his fingers with mine. I blush again.

The attic is messy, with the remnants of other people's lives strewn across the floor. Oddly, there's a bed up here. Then I remember that Tate said this was his brother's favorite place. _Beau probably slept here_, I think. _He might have died here._ It sends shivers up my spine.

"I don't remember _exactly_ where it is, but I know that there are books here from when the Montgomeries lived here. I think some of them might have been first editions." I am my mother's child, and the idea excites me, though I still can't shake the uneasy feeling this place gives me. I don't know how Rhett can spend time up here.

I follow Tate through stacks of cardboard boxes and old chests. We dodge cobwebs and especially low places in the ceiling. This attic is absolutely massive. Finally we come to a box that is marked in very nice cursive, 'books'.

"I think this one is it," Tate says, bending. We're still holding hands, so he brings me down with him. He doesn't let go as he opens the box up. Inside is a lot more dust, but also a lot of books. One in particular sticks out to me.

"No way," I say, picking it up carefully. I still don't want to let go of Tate's hand, and I think he sense that because he helps me open it.

"Do you know what this is?" I ask, wide-eyed as I look up to him. He smiles at me, and I get the feeling that he's amused by my excitement.

"It's _The Great Gatsby_." He says it in such a matter of fact way that I have to roll my eyes at him. Excitement bubbles up in me. I absolutely can't wait to show this to Mom.

"No, read the title page!" Tate pulls the book closer to him. His thumb is tracing patterns on the palm of the hand he holds.

"To Charles, with love from his wife, Nora. It's signed F. Scott Fitzgerald." Even this he reads as if it's no big deal. Or maybe he's only doing it this way to tease me.

"_Exactly._ It's not just a first edition, Tate, it's signed by Fitzgerald! My mom is going to flip when I show her." Tate is smiling so widely that dimples show in his cheeks. He reaches out and touches my cheek. I'm smiling, too.

"I knew this would make you happy," he says. I think for a moment he might kiss me. Instead his eyes drift upward above my head and for a split second I swear they darken. Then he's looking at me again and they're shining again.

"You want to see something else?" he asks, pulling me to my feet before waiting for me to answer. The floor boards creak with our weight. It's even colder here than in the rest of the house, and when my teeth start to chatter, Tate abandons my hand to wrap his arm around my shoulder. He's just as cold as I am. I lean into him, mostly because I want to, but also thinking maybe we can warm each other this way.

The something else he was referring to is inside one of the old chests. He pops it open easily. I'm surprised it wasn't locked when I see what is inside. Wrapped in ancient, yellowed newspapers is jewelry in the art deco fashion from the 1920's. Underneath that is dresses covered in beading and jewels, hair pieces with feathers and tassels, low-heeled shoes that are shiny even now.

"This was all hers, wasn't it? All of this belonged to Nora." I run my hand over one of the dresses, pale lavender in color, with vaguely floral designs made of glass beading. It seems too heavy for the delicate ribbon straps. I don't know why, but I get the feeling that this stuff is very important to Tate, even though it isn't his.

"There are all sorts of leftovers from lives up here," Tate says. He's not looking at me again. His gaze has drifted over to one of the corners, and his face has turned soft. There's a smile on his lips and I look down to see a red ball in his hand. He rolls it toward the corner. I remember, then, the story of his brother, Beau. A heavy coldness settles over me.

* * *

"I can't believe he all but told her," Hayden rages later to Dallas and Fiona. The three have become a sort of trio of friends, if Hayden could bring herself to call them that. They were supposed to be a means to an end, killing Ben so she could have Michael, but that was a flop and she hasn't been able to shake them since.

"Maybe she won't figure it out. It took the little brat months. She was a ghost herself for weeks before she even knew about this place," Fiona says, watching Tate and Callie through the window just like the others are. The two look like budding young lovers as Callie leads him through the unkempt yard lit with strings of fairy lights to his own supposed home. She doesn't know Tate's never lived in that house a day in his life.

"I say we play hardball," Dallas says, a sickening smile coming across his face. If Hayden would admit it, there is a reason she kept Dallas around: he is absolutely twisted. Hayden takes a step forward and smirks, waiting to hear what he has thought up.

"I think," his eyes light up in the cruelest way, "the little lady should meet Thaddeus."


	6. Chapter Five

**N/A:** Hey, guys! I try not to do too many of these notes because I think it disrupts the flow, but I wanted to avoid some confusion that this chapter might bring! A lot of minor characters are used, and I myself had to use an AHS Wikia page to write this one. So here's a quick little list to remind any of y'all who don't remember these very minor characters!

**Dallas & Fiona: **Appeared and died in _Home Invasion_ when they tried kill Vivien and Violet Harmon to recreate the R. Franklin Murders in which Maria and Gladys, two nursing students died. Both were killed by Tate, Maria, and Glady

**Elizabeth Short:** The victim of the infamous Black Dahlia Murder in which she was cut in half and her mouth slit. She was killed by Dr. David Curran, but mutilated by Charlse Montgommery.

**Patrick & Chad:** The gay couple who owned the Murder House before the Harmons. When they decided against adopting a child (that Tate planned to kill to give to Nora), Tate killed them and staged their deaths to appear like a murder-suicide.

I hope this helps!

* * *

Chapter Five

* * *

After Tate leaves, I take the book and Nora's beautiful things downstairs. Mom's home now, but she's so tired from her double day of teaching at the high school and college that she went to bed early. I lay the book on my nightstand; put Nora's lovely dresses in old dry cleaning bags. I put her jewelry in my box, careful not to let them tangle or catch on other pieces. I don't know what I'll do with them, but it didn't feel right to leave them up in the musty attic.

I smile when I think about being up in the attic with Tate, but I'm also stuck on what he said. _Leftovers from lives._ Was he talking about the stuff, or something more? It's still on my mind whenever I fall asleep. Not long after I fall asleep, I start having a nightmare.

I dream I'm dreaming. In it, a young woman with long red hair wakes me up and takes my hand. Only, I don't think I'm really awake. It feels more like sleepwalking, and it reminds me of _Anastasia_ when Rasputin tries to get her to jump from the boat by enchanting her while she's asleep. The girl with the red hair smiles at me and leads me down the stairs.

We walk past a girl with dark curls and milky skin as we take the stairs. She smiles at me with her cherry red lips and squeezes my shoulder when we pass. No, she's not smiling. Her cheeks are torn into a gruesome mimic of a smile. I can see her teeth through the jagged ruins of her face.

In the living room, we pass by two little boys. Their hair is red, too, much redder than the girl leading me. They must be twins; they're dressed the same and look exactly alike. They're playing with Rhett's soccer ball, kicking it back and forth between them. When one of them looks up at us, the tilt of his neck exposes an angry red slash. I grip the girl's hand and she smiles a reassuring smile at me. When I look at her, really look at her, I realize parts of her are covered with the deepest bruises I've ever seen. I think they're probably bone deep. I want to ask her what happened, but I don't have a voice.

She leads me down into a basement, and there is a man and woman waiting at the end of the stairs. They smile, too, but like everyone else I've seen, they're hurt. The woman is soaking wet, with little rivulets of water mixing with blood that oozes from the deep cut on her neck. The man also has a cut on his neck, but I think he's been stabbed. There are tears in his shirt and bloody roses blooming across the fabric.

The woman with red hair passes me off to the man, who places his hand along the small of my back. He guides me through the basement until we reach a dark corner that is all consuming and suffocating. I had no idea it existed.

"Not everything in this house is as it seems, baby," he whispers close to my ear. Then he makes a kind of kissing noise, and waves his hand around. It reminds me of the way you might call a dog. From deep in the shadows, I hear a rustling noise.

Very suddenly, the dripping woman is beside us. When she touches my face, it leaves behind cool water. She smiles at me.

"Time to wake up," she says. When I blink, they're all gone, the only clue they were ever there being the little line of water falling down my cheek like a tear. I don't know what to do with myself. Before I can even think, something knocks me to the floor with such force that I lose my breath.

I can't even begin to describe the creature that tackles me. Even though it is bigger than me and looks years older, it's dressed in a baby suit like some kind of demented circus clown. The thing's eyes are completely black. I cannot distinguish pupil from iris. Whatever it is, it is strong. It easily pins me down and uses its weight to stop my thrashing. Hot, foul breaths wash over my face as it lowers its mouth—circular and full of razor teeth—toward my neck.

I want to scream. More than anything on this earth, I want to yell so that someone will know I'm down here and save me. But I'm so scared that I can't move. I'm paralyzed to the spot. Just as I feel the thing's teeth about to cut into my skin, someone or something crashes into us, and I'm pushed away. When I look up, Tate is there, covering my body with his.

There's something not right about Tate. His black sweater is riddled with holes, and it's sticking to his skin as if it's wet.

"Thaddeus, _go away_," Tate says. It is not like his usual voice. This is harsh and mean. Whatever the thing is, it backs away into the shadows. It isn't until Tate pulls me up and touches my face that I realize I'm crying.

I forget all about his ruined shirt and smash myself against him, holding on tight. He's moving us away from the shadows, cooing to me and stroking my hair. I'm shaking. When we're near the stairs, he flips the lights on.

"Are you okay?" he asks, tipping my head up and wiping away the tears. I nod and take a step back. My t-shirt has become stuck to his. When they peel away, the purple of mine is stained with blood. I reach out and touch his chest.

"Tate, what happened to you? What's going on?" My heart is still pounding and there's a ringing in my ears.

"You should get her back to bed," a voice that is almost familiar says. When I turn around, I see a beautiful young woman dressed in the sexy version of a maid's uniform. Her right eye is missing. Looking at her bright red hair, I know she must be Moira. "I'll take care of things down here."

When she turns away from us, I can see the hole in her head where a bullet made a path from her eye to her brain. Tate is pulling my hand, tugging me up the stairs even though I'm still staring after this young, beautifully ruined Moira. Finally, when I do look at Tate, he's whole again. No tears in his sweater, no blood seeping through. Looking down at my own shirt, I see it's clean.

"Do you trust me?" Tate asks, stopping before the door that leads to the basement. His eyes are wild and scared.

"Yes," I say, because I do. He's just saved me, why wouldn't I trust him?

"Close your eyes. Don't open them again until I tell you to." I close them and let Tate lead me blindly.

* * *

Callie is holding Tate's hand so tightly he can feel her pulse jumping in her fingers. He's glad he told her to close her eyes. In this half-sleep, enchanted state Hayden has put her in, she can see the ghosts as they died. He hadn't realized his bullet wounds were there until she told him.

In the kitchen, to his surprise, are the Harmons. They usually hide away from the others. Violet is smirking, soaking and leaving a puddle on the floor. Vivien looks like a healthy young mother holding her baby, if you ignore the blood stains covering the skirt of her dress. And Ben, you'd think him alive were it not for his blue lips and the ligature bruises encircling his throat like a necklace.

Leaning over the bannister are Chad, dripping wet and his head pierced by the bullet Tate placed their years ago, and Patrick, bleeding everywhere from the beating he got.

Tate ignores them all, shoving Patrick away when they pass him and he tries to reach out to touch Callie. Elizabeth is holding Callie's bedroom door opened, smiling apologetically as best she can with her ruined mouth.

He guides her to her bed, but he's at a loss. How will he convince her to go back to true sleep? She's still shaking, even when he gets her to lie down and tucks her blankets around her.

"Tate?" she asks, voice sounding small. "Can I open my eyes now?" Tate nods at Elizabeth, who softly closes the door.

"Yes, you can. You're safe now." When her eyes open, he can tell just how scared she is. Her pupils have expanded so that hardly any of the hazel is showing. Tate reaches out and strokes her face.

"Is this a dream?" she asks. The sound of heels makes Tate turn around. Nora is there, her dress shimmery in the moonlight. In her hand is a bottle and a cloth. Chloroform.

"Yeah, it is," Tate says, eyeing Nora as she walks over. She seems to know what's going on in the house. When Callie doesn't make any sign she's noticed Nora's presence, Tate knows she's invisible to Callie. Nora winks at Tate, then upturns her bottle onto the cloth.

Gently, she waves the cloth under Callie's nose while Tate runs his fingers through her dark hair. Callie's eyelids flutter, and then she is asleep again.

"I like this one better than the last, I've decided," Nora says, running her finger down the length of Callie's face. Tate gives a rueful smile, then bends to kiss Callie's temple.

"I do, too."

Tate keeps watch over Callie while she sleeps, hosting a vigil on the side of her bed. When she wakes in the morning, he can tell that the dream has stayed with her. Too late, he notices that Nora left one of her necklaces out for Callie. A peace offering of sorts, or a gift, he's sure, but the look of fear that crosses Callie's face when she notices this trinket out of sorts worries him.

They're getting too close. That stunt last night was risky. Hayden, he decides, is going to pay along with her little cronies. Tate waits until Callie slips away to school safely before slipping away himself to the garage. He's after a certain crowbar that Shane had used when the family moved.

Walking through the kitchen, he runs into his mother. Rolling his eyes, he materializes to her.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be watching Michael?" Constance carefully places the china she'd been eyeing back into the cabinet. No need to break what you plan to steal later on.

"The sweet angel is napping," she says, smiling at her second son. Her perfect son, born with no imperfections on his handsome face, just inside of him in his soul. He is just as dark and lovely in death as he had been in life. Constance loved all of her children, it's true, but Tate has always held a special place in her heart.

"He's not going to be a sweet angel if you don't stop spoiling him. He has to hear 'no' every now and then." Tate says, taking the cut crystal tumbler from his mother's hand and placing it back in its place in another cabinet. Constance merely scoffs and moves onto the next.

"Tate, honey, if you don't like how he's bein' raised, I can always have him reunited with you and his mother." She says it so nonchalantly that it angers Tate more than if she'd laced her words with venom and malice. He grabs her wrist, squeezing hard.

"You are not going to kill him like you killed Beauregard, do you hear me Mother? If you don't watch yourself and start minding him better, _you're_ going to be the one dead. He'll kill you just like he did that nanny. Now go home." Tate pushes Constance out of his way and continues onto the garage.

He ignores her when she calls after him, "I am home, darlin'!"

Once he has the crowbar in his hand, Tate finds Hayden upstairs, playing with Beth's perfumes and makeup. She doesn't see Tate's reflection in the mirror until he is standing behind her, crowbar raised.

The sound of her skull cracking and concaving brings a smile to his face.


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Nora's necklace is my first clue that something about the house is off. The nightmare stays with me all day at school. I guess the makeup I put on to cover the dark circles it brought on wasn't effective, because Lacey spent the whole day asking me if I was okay. _Yes,_ I told her. _I'm fine._

The necklace is beautiful, a choker made of a dark blue velvet ribbon inlaid with pearls. From its center dangles a crystal charm. It's clear, but you can see the ghost of a pale pink rose. Lovely, but out of place. I thought of putting it on this morning, but decided against it and left it lying on my dresser.

I have it in my hand when I'm sitting in the library. Mom put up her little glass birds in there, and the way the sun is setting throws a rainbow of lights along my legs. A few rooms over, I can hear Rhett playing one of his video games. It's one of the few times he's not up in the attic or down in the basement. He's always playing with Beau, he says.

"I thought he was too old for imaginary friends." Mom said to me last week as we cooked dinner. Moira, who was scrubbing a window, turned to us with a tender smile.

"Forgive me for speaking so outright, Madam, but aren't all writers full of imaginary friends?" Mom considered this for a moment, and then smiled back at Moira. Mom would like nothing better than for Rhett to take some sort of interest in literature.

"Thank you, Moira. That makes me feel much better." As always, Mom invited Moira to eat dinner with us. Moira always declines, but I know Mom really likes her. I do, too, even though I could hardly look at her this morning after that nightmare.

I'm watching the light glint off the pearls in the necklace when my phone starts to buzz. The caller I.D. says it's Lacey.

"Oh. My. God. You were not lying. Your neighbor is _gorgeous._" Lacey says instead of a normal 'hello'. I look out the window. In the Langdon's front yard are Tate and Michael, both of them clad only in swim trunks, water guns and balloons strewn across the yard. When Michael points his water gun at Tate with surprisingly good aim for a three year old, Tate ducks behind Constance's car.

I smile and tell Lacey, "Get in my house, you weird little stalker!" She laughs, and then I hear the door open downstairs. I wrap Nora's necklace around my wrist and tie it like a bracelet before walking into the hallway to find Lacey.

"Can you see the neighbor's yard from your window?" Is the first thing out of her mouth. I laugh and shake my head, then take her hand and pull her into the library.

"Stalk to your heart's content!" She does, keeping her head low and watching until Tate finally swings Michael up on his shoulders, both of them wet and plastered with grass, and takes him into the house.

"He's yummy," she finally says, turning from the window. I laugh. "I bet that's why you didn't sleep last night. You were dreaming of the oh-so-yummy Tate Langdon and then kept waking up to realize it wasn't real." I feel myself go pale.

"Actually, I did dream about Tate last night. Just not in the way you're thinking," I say and then launch into the story of my nightmare. She sits wide-eyed. I know I'm scaring her, but after I start, I can't stop. When I finally finish, her face is really pale.

"That is honestly the scariest nightmare I've ever heard of, Callie." She shakes her head, like that will clear it of all thoughts of the dream. She picks up my hand, turning it this way and that to watch the sun catch the pearls. "Where'd you get this?"

"It was Nora's. Do you remember that photo I showed you? Tate showed me where all her stuff was in the attic. There's more in my room if you want to see. I didn't want to leave it up in the attic after I saw how pretty it is." Just like that, Lacey has forgotten the dream. That's all it was, after all.

* * *

Still in his swim trunks, Tate lets himself back into the Richards' house. Only Moira notices the swing of the door or even sees his presence. Beth, grading papers at the bar in the kitchen while she chats with Moira, never looks up. Tate gives Moira a smile and a nod, but he isn't there for her.

Surprisingly, he's not there for Callie, either. He can hear her and her friend giggling, and when he passes her open bedroom he sees them playing dress up in Nora's clothes. He stops for a moment to watch, smiling as Callie twirls around in that lavender dress she loved in the attic. The attic is where he intends to go.

"Beau, where are you, buddy?" Chains rattle, and then Beau is there before Tate. "Hey, man," Tate says, bending down so that they're on the same level. He's always wished that Beau were able to realize the chains no longer held him. Besides the basement, Beau's never been anywhere else in the house without Tate's coaxing.

Beau gives Tate his signature red ball and then scoots far away from him, motioning for his brother to roll it. While they play, Tate talks.

"I bet you miss Addie, huh, buddy?" Adelaide, unlike her brothers, did not die within the house. When she died, she truly died. If there was any good thing Tate could say about his mother, it was that Constance had come to tell Beau about Addie's death herself. "I miss her, too."

Constance still has pictures of himself and Adelaide up in her house, now alongside pictures of Tate and Michael. It's a good thing Constance didn't have many visitors. They would surely ask why Addie and Michael aged in those pictures and Tate didn't.

"You like to play with Rhett, though, right?" To this, Beau nods and smiles the best he can. Tate smiles back, and Beau claps his hands, trying to say 'Rhett', but unable to get past the R.

"Do you think you could do me a favor, Beau?" He nods again, and Tate motions him forward. "I need you to listen really carefully, okay?"

Tate waits until Beau is very close to speak again. "Tomorrow night, Momma and Michael and me are going to be here. Rhett's family invited us over for dinner. Remember what I told you about other people that live here, like Hayden and Chad and Patrick? They would want to hurt Michael. That would make me very sad. We love Michael, but we don't want him to live here with us, right?" Beau shakes his head; no, Michael should not live here.

"Hayden has been telling Thaddeus to be bad. He almost hurt Callie because Hayden told him to. You can help me tomorrow, though, if you go play with Thaddeus so that he won't want to listen to Hayden." Beau nods excitedly. He is older than Tate, but he'd do anything to make his brother proud of him. Tate hugs his brother tightly, but then tells him he must leave.

Tate never sees Violet hiding in the corner.

* * *

"Daddy," I say, knocking on the doorframe of his office. He looks up from his books and smiles, motioning for me to come in. I've come because I want one of his little EMF readers. I want to see if it lights up in my room the way it's supposed to when a ghost is there.

I'm nervous, though, and I'm not sure how to ask. So I'm really grateful when Dad touches Nora's necklace and asks about it the way that Lacey did. I go ahead and tell him about the attic and moving Nora's clothes and things to my room. He smiles when I mention Tate in the story and I blush.

"You know, Callie-bug, that by doing that you practically invited Nora into your room if her spirit is still here." I twist her necklace around my wrist.

"Yeah, I figured that's what happened. I put all her necklaces and stuff away in my jewelry box, but when I got up this morning, this one was on my dresser like someone laid it out for me." I explain, and Dad nods along.

"So I guess what I was wondering is, can I have one of those EMF things? I want to see if it lights up in my room." Dad's eyes light up like I've never seen. I've always been my mother's daughter, so this sudden interest in the supernatural has made him more than a little bit excited. He gives it to me without question.

Back in my room, I clean off my bedside table to make room for the EMF reader. I'll admit, I feel kind of silly doing it. After making sure it's squarely in the middle of the table like Dad told me, I leave to my bathroom to take a shower.

I'm listening carefully, though, trying to hear anything unusual through the sound of the water. Creaks and groans, are those really the noises of the house settling like Mom says? Or is Dad right, and it's spirits we can't see moving around the house? It's quiet, though. All I can hear is the water in my shower and Rhett's too-loud video game in the next room over.

Ever since I was very young and saw my father and Uncle Rob doing a séance, I've loved candles. I didn't care about the whole ritual aspect of a séance. I just loved the way the candle flames flickering and dancing in the dark. Mom calls it a fire hazard, but I keep a lot of candles in my room. They were all lit when I went to take my shower.

Every single one of them had been blown out when I went back to my room.

Smoke is still curling from the wicks. The lights are on, though, so it's not like I walked into a dark room. Still, it's freaky. I didn't get a bad feeling about it, so I did what Dad told me to: act like it hadn't happened. Keep doing things I'd usually do. So I go to sleep, and thankfully, I don't have any nightmares.

In the morning, I'm not surprised to see a delicate, gold rope of a headband laid out for me. Another gift from Nora. I'm hoping she was the one who blew out my candles last night. I dress in a white ruffled dress and gold sandals before slipping Nora's headband over my wavy hair. It fits perfectly, making a golden halo around my forehead.

"Look at my little hippie," Mom says, kissing my cheek before Moira slides a plate of pancakes towards me. I smile thank you to her. I really like Moira. She reminds me of my dad's mother in a lot of ways.

"Is that another of Mrs. Montgomery's pieces?" Moira is very formal, even when speaking of the dead. I nod and she only says, "I'm sure she's glad they're being used again."

Moira and Mom launch into a discussion about what to serve tonight. At first I'm confused. It's just Friday night. Then I hear Mom ask Moira questions about what Constance likes, and I realize: the Langdons are coming over for dinner. Moira promises to clean the dining room, which I almost laugh at. The house is so perfectly spotless thanks to Moira. I don't say anything about the dinner, mostly because seeing Tate again makes me both excited and nervous.

Lacey, ever the boy-crazy girl she is, nearly explodes with excitement at the news. "This will practically seal the deal with him becoming your boyfriend!" I wish I could be more indignant about this, but all I can do is blush and smile. This of course opens up the flood gates with Lacey's teasing that lasts the whole day.

When I get home, Mom is really nervous. She's telling Rhett that as much as he hates it, he has to wear a button down shirt. Mom waves me off to go upstairs and change myself. On my bed is a pale pink strapless dress Mom has laid out for me. Beside it is something of Nora's, a little cape-like garment decorate with art deco rose colored jewels.

_A lady should never show so much_ _skin at a dinner party._ I'm not sure if the whisper was in my head or if someone else would have heard it if I weren't alone. The EMF meter, which I'd completely forgotten about last night after the candles, is going crazy lighting up. I ignore it and get dressed. It has to be said, Nora had, or _has_, great fashion sense.

* * *

Violet is trying her best to get Tate to slip up during dinner. He's sitting across from Callie and has his eyes trained on her. Violet is sitting on the arm rest of his chair, swirling her finger around in his water to create ripples or picking at the food on his plate. Once, she even leaned forward to pluck petals off the flowers in the center until Tate 'accidently' elbowed her sharply in the thigh.

]Her mother is in the corner, watching Michael with tears in her eyes. Ben is there, too, but he's not happy about it. Nora can be heard singing upstairs. It's one of the rare occasions Vivien has let Nora watch the baby. If it weren't for her parents being there, Violet probably would have kicked it up a notch perhaps by whispering dirty things to him or kissing him along his neck like he always liked. She has more dignity than that, though, she'd like to think.

Moira gives Violet a pointed look. Even though Moira also thinks the Richards should be made aware of their ghostly housemates, she doesn't think the dinner table is a proper place to do it. Especially not with Constance there, who they all know is the biggest fraud of them all. She'll just spin a story to explain it all away like she would for the Harmons.

Violet smiles at Moira and wraps a curl from the back of Tate's head around her finger. She leans close to him so that her lips are touching his ear.

"Mark my words Tate, I _will_ stop you."

Tate 'accidently' drops his steak knife on her bare foot.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

"Tate! Honey, did you cut yourself trying to catch that knife?" we all saw Tate drop his knife and bend to catch it before it clattered on the floor, but we don't see his hand full of blood until he straightens up. Michael reaches out for it, his eyes wide, and Tate pushes his hands away.

"I'm okay, little man," he says, but his tone is oddly stern. So is the look he gives him as he rushes out of the room. My mom looks worried and Moira is frozen to her spot in the doorway. Michael slips his hand into Constance's.

"Callie, go see if he's okay," Dad says. I nod and Rhett, who is sitting closest to Tate, starts to blot up the blood from Mom's table cloth. "Rhett, Moira will get it, buddy." Moira knows how to get rid of blood stains. She cleaned up Chad and Patrick's after their murder-suicide, and Vivien's after she died giving birth.

I find Tate in the bathroom, running cold water over his hand. There's blood all up his sleeve. He gives me a rueful smile that brings out his dimples. "What a way to spice up dinner, huh?" I pull his sleeve up for him so he can wash off his arm.

"In the early 1900s, they would pay to have medium sessions. They would sit around the dinner table and disgusting ectoplasm would seep out of the medium's orifices. Now _that_ would spice up dinner." I stretch up onto my tiptoes to get the first aid kit from inside the medicine cabinet.

"You're a hard girl to impress." Tate doesn't even flinch when I over turn the bottle of peroxide over the cut on his palm. In fact, he looks bemused while I bandage his hand. "You know," Tate says, "what really makes it all better is a kiss. Didn't anyone ever teach you that?"

He shifts so that he's almost leaning towards me. I smile up at him, but before he gets too close, I pick up his hand. I place a kiss over the bandage I gave him. "All better!" I add.

Tate shakes his head, but he's smirking. "You're something else." He takes my hand with his good one and leads me back to the dining room. I admit, I'm a little bit sad when he lets go just before walking through the doorway.

Constance is eyeing her son warily. Dad claps Tate on the shoulder, "Are we good now, son?" My dad's always been the type to take pretty much anyone under his wing. Tate nods and smiles, then takes his seat again between Rhett and Michael. The rest of dinner passes the way one would expect it to, with parental questions geared toward the kids and discussions about work between the adults.

Eventually the conversation devolves into Mom leading Constance away for a thorough tour of the house, since Constance is 'just dyin' to see the changes y'all have made'. Dad takes Rhett and Michael into the living room to play games on the Wii. That leaves Tate and I sitting across from each other at the table, at a loss as to what to do with each other.

Tate smiles up at me over the flowers in the center of the table. His eyes are so perfectly dark brown that you can hardly see his pupils. "Want to go outside or something?" he asks.

I smile back at him and say, "Yeah." Tate takes my hand and leads me out the back door. He stops by the doorframe, where there is an outlet near the ground, and plugs in the wire to light up the gazebo. The fairy lights mimic the bright lights of the stars above. With the now-tamed garden serving as a backdrop, it's all very picturesque and fairytale beautiful.

We walk out to the gazebo and sit side-by-side, Tate's arm around my shoulders. "I'm really glad you moved in here. This neighborhood is lonely." I know what he means. Aside from Tate and myself, there are no other teenagers close by. Most of the kids are around Rhett's age. He's been making new friends left and right.

"I'm glad, too," I say, smiling over at him. Tate smirks and raises an eyebrow.

"Is that so?" he asks, sliding a pack of Virginia Slims out of his pocket along with a lighter. "I borrow them from my mom," he answers my unasked question when he sees me glance over at them.

"Isn't smoking a little contradictory to running track?" He just laughs and lights up.

"Let's talk more about why you're so glad you moved here." I blush and play with the hem of my dress, choosing to stay quiet.

* * *

From her perch in a nearby oak tree, Violet can see every sickening exchange between Tate and Callie. Tate twirls one of Callie's curls around his finger, much like Violet had done to him less than an hour ago. It makes her sick to her stomach and she wishes she were still able to puke. How is it that she can no longer have that relief, but she can feel the deep, painful wound left by the knife Tate threw at her foot?

Well, it wasn't called purgatory for nothing. As she remembered it, though, the evil were supposed to suffer, not be holding the hand of an innocent girl. Violet always knew the living world wasn't fair, but apparently the dead world wasn't much of an improvement.

Climbing the tree would have been impossible without Patrick. He had pushed her up and told her to just yell when she wanted down. The only good thing about being stuck in this house for eternity was the friends she had earned from it. Just three years ago, she had been against Chad and Patrick and allied with Tate. To say that the tables had turned would be an incredible understatement.

When Callie laughs and leans into Tate to rest her head on his shoulder, Violet can't help the tears that spring to her eyes.

_That_, she thinks, _used to be my place._

* * *

"I think your mom is looking for you," I say, reluctant to move away from Tate. We've become comfortably snuggled up in each other out in the gazebo. Tate was in the middle of telling me about when he was younger he'd climb trees to try to get closer to the birds. He wanted to fly away with them, he said.

"That's unfortunate," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. I feel his breath stir my hair when he sighs, and the cool pressure of his lips against the crown of my head. I'm really glad I'm facing away from him, or else he would have seen my raging blush.

Even though we can faintly hear the adults talking near the back door, neither of us move. When I glance over to the back window, I see my mother and Constance. Michael is slumped against her shoulder asleep. Mom and Constance smile and then let the curtains fall back into place. I don't know if they saw me looking or not.

"They might get desperate and come out for us," I say. Tate's laugh makes his chest vibrate against the back of my head.

"I think," he says, picking up my hand and threading his fingers through mine, "that they're giving me my end of the night moment." I look up to see that he's looking at the back window. There's no shadows there now. He's right; they've moved away to give us privacy.

"Guess you'd better do the whole walking me up to the door thing," I say, even though I don't want the night to end. Tate moves away from me and tugs me to his feet, a dimpled smirk on his face. I smile up at him and he slips his arm around my waist, first turning me and then leading me up the walkway. The back porch light has been left on for us.

We stop just shy of the door. I can feel my heart pounding against my ribcage. I'm hoping that he'll stick to the script our parents have laid out for us. I lift my face, trying to catch his eyes, but he's looking slightly above my head. His face breaks out in a big smile and then he looks to me, eyes shining despite the darkness.

Even now, his hands are cold, but they seem to burn somehow as he cups my face and begins to lean into me. Of their own volition, my feet arch onto tiptoe so that I can end the sweet tension and my lips meet his. What starts off soft quickly evolves into a kiss like I've never had before. Tate's kiss is rough, but the hand cradling my head is so gentle it's like not even there. I am in love with the contrast.

A cracking noise makes us break apart. Reflexively, Tate pulls me into him and he looks around the yard. His eyes are still soft and hazy as they scan the yard for the source of the noise. "Probably just a squirrel or something," I say.

"Yeah," he says, still peering into the dark, "it probably was. Let's go inside, though. You're getting cold." He rubs my arms, which have broken out in goose bumps.

When we go back in, we find everyone except for Rhett sitting in the living room. "Here, Mom, I'll take him. He's getting heavy now." Tate says to Constance, sliding Michael's sleeping form out of her arms and settling his weight against his shoulder. Michael wakes for a moment, looking confused, but then he smiles and wraps his arms around Tate's neck when Tate whispers to him.

Mom hugs Constance, telling her how nice it was to have her over and how they'll have to do it again. Dad shakes Tate's hand as best he can with Tate's being preoccupied with holding Michael. I'm suddenly shy, and the best I can manage is hanging back and waving and smiling.

Before he leaves, Tate looks me in the eye and winks.

* * *

Violet envies Callie for a lot of things: Tate, the heart beating in her chest, the fact that she can leave this house at will…but perhaps the biggest thing she envies of her is sleep. Such a simple, compelling thing that keeps Violet coming to Callie's room night after night.

Her weight doesn't disturb Callie at all whenever she sits on the edge of the bed. The moonlight coming through the window gives Violet enough light to see Callie's face. Her lips are still sweetly pink and swollen from Tate's kiss.

For reasons she can't explain even to herself, Violet presses her fingertips first to Callie's and then her own, as if she'll be able to steal the kiss away.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

"This was hers, wasn't it?" Tate asks, running a finger along the hair chain I'm wearing. I don't have to ask who he means. I've learned that Tate has a fascination for Nora. He's lying on my bed, his head in my lap while I lean over him to type my English paper.

"Yeah, it is. I like it a lot," I say, and I do. It's intricate, all woven vines and amethyst flowers. It looks like it should be heavy, but it's feather-light in my hair. Tate grabs my hand in the middle of me typing a sentence and pulls it down towards his face, planting a kiss squarely in the center of my palm. I blush, because I've never been intimate so fast with a boy. After that first kiss, Tate treats me like we've been dating for years rather than a few weeks. The attention is magnetic and I love it despite it bringing on blushes.

"I used to see her, when I was little," Tate says, sitting up and putting my laptop on the floor before pulling me down with him so that we're both lying on the bed.

"I've never seen her," I say just as Tate presses his lips to mine. His eyes are liquid and warm when he pulls away from me.

"Would you like to?" The goose bumps are instantaneous. Tate is offering me my father's dream, and for some reason I don't doubt that he can follow through. I push him away and sit up.

"You can do that?" I ask while Tate runs a hand through my hair to smooth it.

"Yeah, when I saw Nora when I was little, she taught me how to find ghosts. Nora's usually down in the basement." The thought sends shivers down my spine.

"Like how Beau is in the attic?" I ask, and Tate brightens.

"_Exactly_ like that." Tate slides off my bed and I let him take my hand. It doesn't help that the terrible nightmare I had took place in the basement. Tate leans forward to plant a kiss on my forehead. "Don't worry. I'll keep you safe." I smile up at him. I'm still nervous, but he knows this house in a way I do not fully understand and that's enough for me to trust him.

"Okay," I say and try not to let it show how scared I am as we make our way through the house and down the creaky basement steps. I make sure to flip the light switch as soon as we reach it at the end of the stairs.

I think all basements are some level of creepy, no matter how fixed up they are. Our basement would definitely make a 'Top Creepiest Basements' list. It's downright decrepit. I'd think nobody had used it much since Nora and her husband lived in the house, and for good reason. The whole place felt wrong, like you shouldn't be down there. Almost like you're encroaching on someone else's space.

Tate takes a zigzagging path to a back room I never noticed before. I didn't even realize the basement had separate rooms. I guess that makes sense, though. I remember Dad and Rhett talking about how Dr. Montgomery worked from home in the basement. This back room is bare safe for a very old looking table and, curiously, a baby's basinet. It is lighter here, with ground level windows letting in the afternoon sun. It's so dusty that I can see it clogging up the sunlight.

I hold tighter to Tate's hand, unsure of what to do. To my surprise, he takes a seat on the floor, pulling me down with him. He starts pushing an old toy truck I hadn't noticed until we sat down across the floor. The tires leave their mark, branding the dust covering the concrete floor.

"I was playing down here the first time I saw her. I wasn't very old. Beau and Addie weren't exactly good at watching me, and my mom was asleep. This truck fell down-" Tate is cut off by a loud banging noise that makes me jump. I'm about to stand when Tate puts his hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down.

"I'll go look," his voice is gentle, but his hand is forceful. Like when he reprimands Michael, Tate means business.

* * *

In the farthest back corner of the farthest back room in the Richard's basement is where Thaddeus usually stays. Through the years, Nora and Charles had somehow been able to condition their son to stay there. Usually he lived off of raccoons and other critters that either made their way into the into the house, or that Nora, Tate, or Moira had ferretted down there for him. All with the exceptions of Troy and Bryan, that is.

That's not to say that the ghosts at one point or another hadn't used Thaddeus as a means to an end, or to get something they wanted. Tate is no exception to this, having used Thaddeus three years ago to scare off a bully bothering Violet. It doesn't take Tate long to figure out what's going on.

Leaving Callie sitting on the floor, Tate passes Nora and tilts his head toward Callie. Nora nods and goes to stand beside her just in case. Turning the corner into Thaddeus' room, he sees Chad and Patrick.

"What the hell are you faggots doing?" Tate whispers, soft and dangerous. Chad has a dead cat in his hands, still bleeding, as bait. Patrick is rousing Thaddeus up, pulling on his clothes and tapping his head.

"We were just going to show your little girlfriend that her nightmares are more real than she realizes." Chad says, face and voice all innocence as he side steps a violent swipe from Thaddeus.

"You're working for Violet, aren't you?"

Patrick shakes his head and furrows his brow in fake confusion. "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. We're doing this for the common good of the house." He begins to walk forward, trailing blood and leading Thaddeus. Tate hits him hard in the chest, effectively knocking out his unneeded breath.

"Stay down, queen," Tate spats, positioning his foot over Patrick's neck. "You ladies listen up. If I catch you around Callie, I'll fuck your worlds up even more than I did the first time around. Now just get out of here and go away."

Chad smirks and pinches Thaddeus before he begins to fade away. Patrick laughs as Thaddeus becomes angered enough to try to grasp hold of them, and finding no purchase, sets his eyes on Tate.

"Have fun explaining this to your girlfriend!" Their laughter stays even after they're gone.

* * *

There's a loud bang and I jump to my feet. "Tate?" I ask, walking toward where he went when a hand on my arm stops me.

"You mustn't go in there," a soft voice says, and I turn to see a young woman with curled blond hair and wearing one of the dresses hanging up in my closet.

"You're Nora?" I ask, forgetting about whatever Tate is doing. She looks perfectly solid to me, not transparent like I was always led to believe ghosts to be. She gives me a smile that doesn't quite reach her sad eyes and smiles.

"Nora Montgomery. This is my house. You're the girl who takes care of my things." She says, touching a finger to the decoration in my hair. "I've missed seeing these things in the light and in use. I thought maybe the last girl could… But no, she was all wrong. Far too sad. But you, my darling, you shine bright."

She seems almost confused. I wonder if she's one of those spirits Dad tells me about, that are either unaware or in denial that they're dead. She smiles wider now and takes my hands in hers.

"You make Tate very happy. Did he tell you how we used to play when he was younger? He's like my own child. If my Thaddeus had been able to grow up, I would have liked him to grow into someone like Tate. He's a real man, Callie. He knows how to get things done."

She's babbling, but I smile at her and nod. I guess I should feel more frightened by this, but it's more like seeing a celebrity than anything. I mean, I have Nora's stuff and I've looked through pictures of her life. Seeing her now, in front of me, solidly touching me, has the surreal affect the famous do.

"Nora!" Tate's voice behind us makes us both turn. He fixes us with one of his bright, dimpled smiles. When he's close enough, Nora let's go of one of my hands and strokes Tate's cheek.

"There's my boy," she coos softly, like a mother would to a baby. Nora's a little odd, but I like her.

"I wanted Callie to meet the woman leaving her presents," Tate says, wrapping his arm around my waist. He's a little dirty, and I remember the banging noise.

"What happened back there?" I ask, leaning forward only to be stopped by Tate.

"It was nothing, just a raccoon that got into the house somehow. He just didn't much like getting caught is all," Tate says with a rueful laugh and a gesture toward his clothes. Nora affectionately tries to wipe some of the dirt off. Watching them interact, I believe what Tate told me about thinking of Nora as a mother. It's obvious to anyone that they have a connection.

"It's too cold down here for her, Tate. Take her back upstairs. This basement is no place for the living." So Nora _does_ know she's dead, or she at least has an idea. I wish I could tell Dad about this, but something makes me feel like Nora needs to stay hidden. Besides, Rhett has Dad constantly occupied with Beau and trying to capture evidence of him being in the attic. It would seem Beau is camera shy, though. None of their attempts have had results.

Tate nods, and we both stand still as Nora leans forward and kisses us each on the forehead in turn. Back upstairs, mom is startled by the dirt stains on Tate's clothes.

"Did you two go digging down there?" she asks, offering Tate some of the watermelon she's cutting up. Thin pink juice runs down his chin when he bites into it, and I wipe it away with my sweater sleeve.

"No, Tate said that a raccoon got into the house." Tate nods, mouth full.

"It happened a lot when we lived here too, Mrs. Richards. Nobody's ever been able to find where they get in at, but they're pretty easy to scare off when you catch them and they always just leave when they can't find food down there."

Mom shudders. She's never much liked wild animals. They make her nervous. "Well as long as they stay down there, I don't care what they do!" She passes her bowl of watermelon pieces to Moira, who begins to add them to the fruit salad their making.

"Are you staying for dinner, Tate?" He shakes his head and slips his still watermelon sticky hand into mine.

"No, ma'am, I've got to watch Michael for my mom today so she can make a house call. One of her clients broke her leg and can't bring her dog in for grooming. I was just about to leave, actually."

I walk with Tate as far as the shrubbery that separates his yard from ours. "Even though it was really kind of scary, I'm glad you showed her to me." I tell him, and he smiles down at me.

"I like what your dad says about the paranormal. That it's not scary, just misunderstood. Nora's proof of that." Tate leans in and kisses me goodbye, but we break away when we here a little voice calling out to us.

"Hi, Callie!" Michael is yelling while running across the lawn. When he smiles, it reveals a tiny tooth missing on the bottom.

"Whoa, buddy, what happened?" Tate asks, scooping him up. Michael smiles wide at me and points to his missing tooth.

"Owie," he says in answer to Tate's question. "I fall down and hit my face on the chair. My tooth fell out. Now the Tooth Fairy's gonna come!" He says it with all the pride of a three year old and wriggles out of Tate's grasp. "We play catch?" he asks, pulling on Tate's hand.

Tate laughs at his little brother and says, "I guess I'm being stolen."

"I don't mind, not for this little cutie," I say, smiling. Tate plants a quick kiss on my lips before letting himself be dragged by Michael.

"I'll call you tonight!"

I wave goodbye to them and walk back into the house, joining Moira and Mom in making dinner.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the Richard's family, there is a very private meeting going on in their living room. Everyone is settling in for the night; Callie is talking to Tate whilst hiding under her covers, Rhett is setting up his white noise machine in case any of the ghosts want to communicate with him, Beth is finishing up some lesson plans while Shane showers. The living are going about their lives, and the dead theirs.

The groups have been divided, the coffee table their divider. Lots have been cast, and votes haven't fallen the way that Violet expected. She sits with her mother, who is cradling the baby, and he father along with Moira, Chad, Patrick, and Constance's old boyfriend Travis on one side while Nora, Elizabeth, Troy, Brian, Gladys, and Maria stand on the other.

Charles Montgomery, Dallas, Fiona, and Hayden sit on the couch. They are swing votes, wildcards. They could disrupt the vote very easily.

"We can't let this happen again," Ben Harmon says. Usually he and his wife stay away from the others with their baby. Only Violet ever ventures away and makes friends with their housemates.

"So what, you want to scare them away from their only option as a home? You've heard them talking. They're in the same situation you were. All their money is tied up in this place." Charles says. Nora makes a motioning gesture with her hand and her husband comes to her side. His vote has been chosen for him.

"We all know this isn't going to end well, not with psychos running around the place." Violet throws a pointed glance to Hayden and her friends.

"Oh, calm down. We were just having fun. We don't exactly have a lot of entertainment for three-hundred sixty-four days of the year, you know." Hayden says with her signature eye roll.

"You don't have much room to talk," Elizabeth says. She's looking over at Travis sadly. They became fast friends after dying in such similar ways. Now they've taken opposite sides. "You're the one that had Chad and Patrick agitate Thaddeus so he'd attack the girl."

Vivien gives her daughter a reproachful look. "How about we come to a compromise? The family obviously likes the paranormal. Beth doesn't even believe in it. Those of you who want to interact will just have to play fair. And if you get too close or too dangerous, those of us who still have hearts will step in and stop you."

"Well then, you'd better stop Lover Boy soon, shouldn't you, Miss Voice of Reason? He's getting awful close to the new family." Dallas says, poking through the fabric of the couch methodically with a toothpick he took from the kitchen.

All eyes slowly turn to Violet.

"What?" she spats. "I already tried. The girl is blind. She won't listen."

Hayden smirks, "Well, honey, if you won't do it then I will."


	10. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

"Moira," Mom says as we are preparing food one afternoon for dinner. We're shelling peas that Mom picked up from a farmer's market on the way home from work. If someone didn't know we weren't related, we'd probably look like three generations of women, grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter, working side by side.

This observer would also have to be deaf from the conversation, because the illusion is shattered when Moira answers with, "Yes, Madam?" She always answers Mom this way, no matter how many times she tells her to call her Beth instead, or at the least Mrs. Richards.

"Was Nora Montgomery's baby killed in the house?" I think Moira and I stop shelling at the same time. Mom has _never _asked about Nora, or any of the other past residences, despite the fact that there have been plenty who've died here. I think the Langdon family, save for Beau, is the only family to ever live here without such great tragedy as murders, suicides, and freak deaths.

"Why do you ask that, Madam? I thought Mr. Richards was the curious one, not you." I look over at Mom. She's studiously shelling her length of peas into the big ceramic bowl before us.

"It's not that I'm not curious. I'm just a different type of curious. Houses this old naturally come with history, and I just thought that someone who has been with the house as long as you have would have more accurate information than that ridiculous L.A. Horrors tour that stopped by today while I ran home to get something at lunch."

"They still make stops here?" I ask, honestly a little bit excited. I'm not going to lie, being a new resident of the L.A. Murder House had earned me a bit more popularity. Lacey will forever be my best friend, but it's still nice to have some people to talk to in the classes we don't share together. I know Lacey will be excited. She's curious and nosey in an oddly unobtrusive way; she likes to _know_ things, but she's not much for gossiping. She just hates to be left out of things. Going on the tour would make her day.

"Yes, snapping pictures from their cheesy car and forcing people to pay what I'm sure is an outrageous fee to be fed glorified facts." My mother is so Type A, it's nearly ridiculous. I've always found it odd how she can lose herself in the fantasy lands of books, but when it comes to real life, she prefers straight-edged facts above all else.

Moira smirks, her one good eye lighting up with humor. "They don't mean anything by it. Just some people trying to earn money, same as you and I with our jobs, Madam. Besides, with some of the deaths so shrouded in mystery, some of those people may be trying to find justice for the dead." Moira says this last bit a little self-righteously, and I remember her once telling me she had been close with the Harmons and the couple who lived there before them. Though both cases had formal settlements in the eyes of the law, I knew a lot of people questioned the exact circumstances, especially with the Harmons.

"Nora's baby, though, he really did die in the house?" I echo Mom's question while running the tiny topaz butterfly secured to my necklace along the chain. Surprisingly, this piece of jewelry is not Nora's, though it is from the 1920's. It was my great-grandmother's, but just like other old pieces, Nora left it out for me. I haven't seen her since Tate showed her to me, but she still does little things like blow out my candles. One day, she left me clues that led me to a window in the library. Thaddeus's birthdate had been carved into the glass with a diamond ring.

I had heard the story from Tate and Nora herself, but still, the story seemed too horrific to exist off the big screen. I mean, dismembering a doctor's baby as revenge for that doctor performing an abortion on your girlfriend? That totally sounds like the plot line of a low-budget horror film full of jump scares.

"Yes, he was. A horrific event, as the story goes. A few days after it happened, Nora and Charles committed suicide." I think of Nora, of how she talked about Tate and said she wished Thaddeus had been able to grow up into a man like him. I see a shudder go through Mom. Theoretical suicide, such as in _Jude the Obscure_, sits much better with her than actual suicide.

After we finish with the peas, I go immediately upstairs to get my phone from my room so I can tell Lacey about the tours.

"We have to do it! In costume, for you at least. If they do these regularly, they've probably seen you in a window or walking into the house." That thought scares me just a little bit. It's just so creepy to think that someone is intentionally watching you.

"I'll be over in twenty minutes. I'm bringing the Hannah Montana wig."

* * *

Hayden learns, as she sits on Callie's window sill and watches Lacey cut bangs and choppy, short layers into a synthetic blonde wig, that the girls do not scare easy. She's already run through a lot of her subtle tricks: knocking over some nail polish, making Lacey's phone begin to ring even though it was off. All of them have been brushed off with the slightest bit of concern.

She sighs, and leans over Lacey so that she can see into Callie's mirror. If it weren't for the fact that she's invisible as she fixes a makeup smudge, one might think they were just a group of girls getting ready for a night out. Callie's Pandora has been set to a pop station that keeps churning out Rihanna and Ke$ha hits, and the girls are discussing a new edition of _Seventeen._

Hayden picks up a bright pink lipstick and uncaps it. She's just about to scrawl on the mirror when Violet's hand clamps down over hers.

"You don't want to do that," she says, crushing Hayden's hand in hers until she releases the lipstick.

"Listen you little sissy shit, I'm just doing what you're too scared to do. You want that girl to die? Trust me, you do not want your competition trapped in this house for eternity with you." Violet only holds tighter, feeling the bones shift under her palm. Hayden will be bruised for sure.

Hayden pushes Violet away from her hard enough that the corner of the dresser digs deep into Violet's back and causes several bottles of beauty products to topple over.

"I _told_ you the music's too loud," Callie reaches over to turn the volume down while Lacey fixes the mess. Violet glares at Hayden over Lacey's head. She can feel the bruise throbbing deep in her muscles.

"This isn't over."

Hayden only smirks. "Oh, goody. Then this will be fun."

* * *

The tour starts out way on the other side of Los Angeles, at an old sanitarium that used to house tuberculosis patients. From there, it's a lake I didn't even know existed in L.A. that supposedly became the resting place of over twenty kids due to drowning. Eventually, we make it back into the center of town for places like haunted alley ways and abandoned drug stores in the slum areas.

"I can't believe we paid thirteen bucks for this," I whisper to Lacey, but she waves me off. She's getting really into this thing. As the daughter of a man who lives and breathes the paranormal, I could have easily told you that while these places were decrepit and spooky, that it was the unexpected places that are truly terrifying. Like a child's doll that moves on its own, or a baby's room that has an unwanted guest.

Luckily, since we live in Los Angeles, no one has looked twice at the bright blonde, synthetic wig on my head or at Lacey's obvious bronzer smearing her cheeks. In a place like this, beauty oddities blend in. We used to do things like this all the time, so Mom didn't even question our incognito outfits as we headed out of the house.

_Finally_ they take a familiar turn, and there it, my house. Eerie music begins to pipe out of the car's speakers and the tour guide takes on an over-the-top accent.

"Our _grand finale_, ladies and gentlemen…The L.A. Murder House!" In the yard next door, I see Tate give the caravan of tourists a sneer before placing his hand on Michael's shoulder and leading him inside. Constance, who was working in the garden while the boys played a game of tag, stands and wipes the dirt from her legs before following her sons inside. This tour has probably been a nuisance to them for years.

"As many of you already know, the House has acquired new residents as of late." Acquired? This quack is talking like the house has its own life force. From the outside, I can see how the house would look formidable. It's practically a mini-mansion, and the outside has remained unchanged since Charles first had it built for Nora. Though in excellent condition, it is definitely out of place next to Constance's much more modern house. People are always wary of the different, and my house is definitely different.

* * *

"Oh, they're at it again," Elizabeth calls down the hall to Nora. Both of them have been playing dress up in Beth's closet, each trying to make sense of modern clothing. Troy jumps up from where he'd been sitting, feet dangling between the bannister bars on the second floor. He and Bryan had been trying to rig trip wires from some of Shane's fishing gear.

"These tours are ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as this new couch Madam bought," Chad says, making a gagging motion over the new furniture as Patrick laughs. Moira pokes her head around the kitchen doorway, a dish in hand.

"Don't worry, Vivien. This has always been more fun for them than messing with the families." The tours have only recently started back up since the Richards family has moved in. The first few rounds went unnoticed by the ghosts, but now that they've caught onto the new round, they've reverted back to their old habits.

"Let's go shake the curtains!" Troy calls down to his brother. The boys take off running, pushing each other to try to get to Rhett's bedroom first. It's easily seen from outside, and often the one the ghosts choose to appear in.

"I don't see why this is necessary," Vivien says from her seat in the kitchen floor. The baby is laid out on one of Rhett's old baby blankets, cooing and playing with a Tiffany rattle that once belonged to Thaddeus.

Moira smiles softly and continues to wash dishes. "You haven't been here long. Ennui sets in so easily when you're stuck in one place except for Halloween night." The fated night, the ghost's own personal version of Christmas, was coming up in less than a month.

"Tate can go farther than any of us can," Violet points out as she slides herself onto the counter and smiles down at her baby brother. "Why do you think that is? I mean, he can walk around the block without waiting for Halloween. The rest of us can't even make it to the end of the street."

Upstairs, Bryan and Troy can be heard laughing. Curious, Violet peaks out the kitchen's windows, being careful to stay hidden. People are enthusiastically snapping photos and pointing to the upstairs window where Bryan and Troy have no doubt let a glimpse of themselves be caught. The twins have always had fun messing with the living.

"I'm sure if we had the misfortune of adding Constance to the household, she would be the same way. She's fed blood into the house, same as her son. Seems to me that this place has a habit of playing favorites, Violet."

Moira isn't wrong. Tate has been responsible for several deaths within the house, all of which could very well have led to him having more leeway when it comes to leaving. Outside of the house, the car is still idling before it. Lacey is leaned forward, listening to the tour guide. Callie, however, isn't staring at the upstairs window like the others. She has her sunglasses half taken off her face, and she's looking into a different window.

She's looking straight at Violet.

* * *

Everyone's freaking out over the curtains in Rhett's room swaying. Some are swearing that they saw a little boy up there. Never mind the fact that it could have been the air conditioner that made the curtain move. Never mind the fact that downstairs, one of the kitchen windows has had a much more interesting view.

The lace trimmed curtains are being held open, as if someone is standing in the middle of it and looking outside. I lift my hand to wave, figuring it must be Nora since Beau doesn't leave the attic. The curtains fall into place before I even begin to wave.

My house is the last stop on the tour, but to avoid suspicion and because we drove to the business where the tour departs from, Lacey and I stay in the car rather than just walk into my house. Once we're in the safety of Lacey's car, I start to laugh.

"What, you didn't like it?" she asks, though I can see her trying not to smile.

"We both know it was cheesy!" Lacey's laughing now, too, mimicking the tour guide's voice. I know underneath it all, though, Lacey liked the tour, so I don't make fun of it too much.

"I have to go to my grandma's for dinner tonight, so I'll go ahead and drop you off. Maybe you can spend some time with hottie Tate Langdon while I'm inhaling the smell of moth balls." Lacey says with a good natured roll of her eyes. As much as she complains, she knows she's her grandmother's favorite out of the whole entire family. She's always buying Lacey things, which must be nice because her grandmother is absolutely loaded.

I do run into Tate as I'm walking up the driveway to the house.

"Nice new hair, Callie!" He calls over from his yard. Tate throws down the bags of potting soil before walking to meet me halfway. "I like you as a brunette better, though," he says, hooking his thumb under the edge of the wig and pulling it off before kissing me hard on the lips.

I smile up at him when we break away. "Good thing me and Lacey were just playing dress up, then." He gives me one of his signature Tate Langdon dimpled smiles.

"Wanna go with me and Michael to the park? Mom asked me to take him this afternoon." Michael comes running out from behind a cluster of pots, his blue eyes shining.

"Callie's going too?" he asks, slipping his hands into both mine and Tate's.

"'Course I am, little man. I just have to go grab a jacket."

Moira stops me as I'm walking back through the living room.

"Sixteen is awfully young to be playing mommy," she comments, nodding her head toward Tate and Michael, who are engaged in a tickle war in the front lawn.

"Michael's his little brother," I say with a smile. Moira doesn't like the Langdon's at all, so I'm not surprised that she'd think of something like this. I mean, it's a little odd for Constance to have had Michael so recently, but that didn't mean anything. There was that woman in the news once that was almost eighty that had a baby.

Moira doesn't say anything, but she turns to me with a look that could only be read as sad.

"Your mother will want you home for dinner," she says, and rubs my back lightly as I walk by. Even though I know there's nothing behind it, something about the encounter leaves me feeling chilled deep down in my bones.


End file.
